This invention relates generally to a merchandise display device for supporting merchandise thereon, and more particularly concerns an expandable base shelf assembly for use with gondolas as conventionally used in supermarkets for display of merchandise. Traditional store shelving, or as it is called, gondola shelving, is designed to arrange a product in a horizontal format. Existing store shelving includes metal shelves, hooking onto vertical uprights, known as standards, that have a series of punched slots in which hooks, attached to the metal shelves, are engaged. This is similar to conventional wall type bookshelves. The shelves extend perpendicularly from the back wall of the gondola and are adjustable vertically in steps within the range of approximately 2 to 21/2 inches per step depending upon the vertical spacing of the punched slots in the standards. The conventional shelves have a depth which ranges from approximately 16 to 26 inches. Research has shown that a vertical arrangement of merchandise, that is, packages stacked one on top of the other, top end to bottom end, tends to enhance the impact of a brand or group of products within a brand. This results because consumers can view all of these products at once as opposed to having to walk an extended distance along an aisle when there are a large number of items in a particular category and the items are arranged horizontally. For example, in a supermarket, coffee can be displayed in an aisle along a length of an aisle that averages anywhere from 8 feet to 40 feet. Obviously, as the section gets longer for a given type product, shopability becomes more and more difficult. Thus, the inconvenience in shopping a particular brand of product is greater when the product is displayed horizontally as compared to a vertical format.
Additionally, a typical six foot high gondola is set up conventionally with six to seven shelves. The thickness of the shelves per se, takes up space that could be used for product and also, there must be a space underneath each shelf that is necessary to remove the product on the shelf below. Thus, as much as 21/2 inches can be used vertically just to put a single shelf in place and to allow finger clearance between the top of the product and the shelf above so that product may be pulled out from underneath the shelf. This "wasted" space increases as the number of shelves increase.
Another problem arises when a product is being especially promoted, e.g. on sale, when it is desired to have a larger than normal quantity of the product on display on the aisle. Conventionally, this increased quantity is accommodated by using shelves of greater depth, spreading the display horizontally in the unlikely event that such space is available, and by stacking large cartons of the product in the aisle space near the shelved display. Shoppers carts have difficulty in negotiating such randomly obstructed aisles.
Also, as the merchandise is removed by purchase from the gondola, the shelves of extra depth remain until the merchandise is replaced even though they are substantially unloaded.
Modifying the shelving just for these special promotional events is inconvenient and costly to the merchandiser.
What is needed is a shelving arrangement that provides more space in a gondola for merchandise and allows for variation in depth of the merchandise display.